Spoilers ahead forDarling in the Franxx, now Streaming on Crunchyroll.
When an anime becomes the talk of the season, it usually happens in one of two ways.Either the show expectedly achieves a level of hypethanks to the reputation of its source material, or it comes out of nowhere and dominates the discourse for months, like, for instance,Darling in the Franxx. Released at the start of 2018,Darling in the Franxxwas the collaborative effort of Trigger, A-1 Pictures, and CloverWorks: a melodramatic mecha series with a sensual twist. It follows a group of teenagers trained to pilot robots in boy-girl pairs and primordial battle beasts that have nearly driven humanity to extinction.
Studio Trigger’s name no doubt sold manyon the series, and the collaborative nature of the project likely enticed many more. Still, almost everyone was talking about the series within a few episodes. From some early plot hooks to the action to the surprising sexual themes that threw many in the audience for a loop, the series gained traction quickly.
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Let’s Talk About Sex
The Franxx, the titular robots in the series, are controlled via the neural (and considerably physical) connection between the pilots. The male and female pilots are referred to as stamens and pistils, respectively, referencing the reproductive system of flowers. After the somewhat tame premiere, this was quite the surprise.
Was the series meant to be taken seriously or was it just a high-production ecchi that buried the lede? It was a little too early to tell, but this not-at-all-subtle sexual element slowly grew on the audience as it became clearhow it played a role in the character writing. Rather than a more subtle metaphor that would have alluded to sexuality as a primary theme, blatant sexuality is used to convey themes of adolescence, compatibility, and respect. It’s perhaps because of how in-your-face the sexuality is that the dramatic core manages to be enticing, basking in teen melodrama that is both indulgent and compelling. Indulgent for how its depictions of young misguided love might resonate with viewers. Compelling for how those relationships are tested and how these characters intersect with the world and its expectations for the characters.
Zero Two became an iconic female character within the anime community, but only half of it was her simple but striking design. It mostly had to do with her personality and her ravenous appetite for the main character, Hiro. Their relationship is the kind of toxic romance that is expectedly fawned over by audiences no matter the medium. Their relationship might not have been a truly aspirational one, but they certainly paired nicely.Zero Two is a fearless and confident pilotwho’s gained a reputation for killing her male partners, never having the same one for too long. Hiro is a character who begins the story not compatible with anyone else until Zero Two shows up, and they synchronize, leading to them being an unstoppable duo.
Mecha genres often rely on formulas stressing important character roles like pilot or co-pilot because the mechanisms of the plot need characters to breathe life into them. Using this wholly expected plot formula, the writers made every character pair off with another as a romantic lead. Much of the series is teen melodrama with an emphasis on the hormonal.
There’s More Under The Surface
SoDarling in the Franxxcaught eyes for its style and studios and kept audiences glued to the screenthanks to its ecchi-tinged romance, but it was hardly the only thing propelling the series forward. As the building hype continued to beg new questions about the world, the characters, and where everything was heading. WhenDarling in the Franxxcomes up, it’s safe to say that the action isn’t what kept people watching. This isn’t even to say that it is bad, just that it wasn’t nearly as interesting as what was happening outside of combat. In particular, the growing list of subtextual hints to something grander in the works. The parallels to classics likeEvangeliononly further piqued fans' interest.
A comparison toEvangelionshould not be made lightly.Monogataripulls such things off as a joke and countless other shows do it through visual callbacks all the time without any presumption of trying to be equal toEva. WithFranxx, it wasn’t the visuals that made people think ofEva, but the story as well. The entire series follows a group of kids kept in a “Bird Cage” and trained to be pilots, with practically no idea about what the rest of humanity is like. The audience has no idea either, and every new hint brought on some creeping sense of unease. The sexual elements, or more accurately, the show’s views of romance, love, and gender, seemed to strengthen an idea that the serieswas going to make some big point.
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There is an episode where one of the characters actually meets an adult and there is a lot to unpack, but one moment stands out. The adult woman shows the character in question, Zorome, her partner, who is in a sort of sleep pod. He seems to be smiling, experiencing pleasure within his slumber, and simultaneously the woman begins to feel pain.
This is but one example, but between the purely binary nature of the relationships, the dystopian secrecy of the outside world, and later-added characters, the series hints at a lot. Perhaps a commentary about gender roles or themes about self-acceptance in the face of societal expectations? Something had to be on the horizon, but there was nothing…
It Was Just Aliens…
The end of Episode 20 introduced a twist so jarringthat it completely uprooted all the elements of the plot that seemed to be building up to something. This isn’t to suggest that readings of series couldn’t derive a core theme from all the storytelling, but there was a lot that the plot was hinting at that never got closure.
The finale attempted to look to the stars and conclude with a climax on par withGurren Lagann. It had the right colors and a fitting attitude, but none of that flare was what made the series alluring to people.
The characters were still themselves, but without tying off the loose ends that stood to elevate their individual arcs to new heights,their stories end with less of a bangand more of a whimper. Obviously, it’s easy to imagine what could have been, but when so much is laid out only to go nowhere, it’s hard not to think about it.
AsDarling in the Franxx’s fame faded into pastiche, even the idea of the true ending became tiresome when considering what had been sacrificed to get the ending that aired. Poor Kana Ichinose, the voice actress for Ichigo, got death threats just for portraying the rival in a love triangle that, for all intents and purposes, was super effective at creating dramatic tension.
Perhaps in the absence of a satisfying ending or the emotional baggage that comes from having watched it when it aired, the whole of the show issummed up by the Ichigo controversy. It was sensational, caused outrage, got people watching, and then ultimately went nowhere. A shame, because it was really something while it lasted.
